I Don't Wanna Know What She Said
by Wavehawk00
Summary: One-shot written as part of a Romantic/Self-insert/Realism challenge that I put out on the Anisuki IS Fanfic board. My favorite character is Charlotte not Linyin, but Linyin was just a better character to portray for story purposes


Silent moonlight was raining on the surface of the water. It isn't what I expected.

In the cold dry night of the desert, I saw the girl standing armoured and tall in the quiet, lonely dark. Her machine was silent in its stance, but the maiden's heart within her trembled like the turbulent oceans.

She turned to me with those questioning eyes, a hint of soft gentility clad in her cloak of beautiful steel.

"I wish I had met you sooner," she replied, the girl-woman hiding both her smile and tears under a tone of familiarity.

Looking at her I could only ask myself...how did it come to this?

* * *

><p><strong>Infinite Stratos: I Don't Wanna Know <em>(What She Said)<em>**

* * *

><p>I like cold weather, but could never get used to cold mornings in June.<p>

Canberra in particular is exceptionally bloody cold. Being the nation's capital, it's meant to house politicians. There's not much else to see here except fireworks and adult magazines. So if you're not a politician, and don't really care much for fireworks or porn, there's really nothing to see here.

I'm not a politician by the way. Still, working with the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) isn't too bad. I'd much rather be living in Sydney or Melbourne, but alas, I go where the job is. There's not a lot of excitement to speak of. This is in Canberra, after all.

To clarify, ASIO is like the American CIA. You're probably wondering how I could be working for such a top government organization and complain about my life being boring.

Well, since Australia generally has good relations with its neighbours, there really isn't anything to get excited about.

Also...I'm not a spy. I was an Office Admin All-Rounder.

To the Yanks out there-that's Australian for Gofer. Which means that when I am sent out to do things, it's usually not something to do with major threats to Australia as a whole. More often than not it was the morning coffee and biscuits run.

So I was wondering why I was being called to the boss' office so early in the morning. Maybe he hated the coffee today, or maybe he needed me to fetch the daily paper. My boss at ASIO was a third-generation Italian by the name of Sam. A real good person to work for as long as he wasn't arguing with his newly ex-wife. Which was pretty often these days.

As I stood in his office door, I could hear a number of multilingual phrasings of profanities and the sound of Sam throwing his phone out the window. Again.

Uh-oh. I tried to grin but grimaced and waved.

"You wanted to see me, Sam?"

There was a gruff grunt as Sam mumbled about how men never get anything post-divorce anymore. He motioned me to sit, which in Sam's book meant pointing vehemently to a chair and saying "SIT." I sat.

Sam ran his hands through his non-existent hair for a second before fixing me in his sights with a shake of his head and sigh.

"What do you know about the Infinite Stratos Academy?"

"Huh." Didn't expect that. "It's an all-girls school for Infinite Stratos pilots located in Japan."

"I know that. I want to know if you've been keeping up to date on your current events."

That's right. Even though I'm just a junior-junior admin, this is still the ASIO. If I wanted to keep my job and get promoted, I had to know what was going on where.

Let me fill you in: The Infinite Stratos system, or IS is a powered exoframe originally developed for space exploration. Somehow things didn't work out as planned, and now it's instead used as either a novelty sporting prosthesis or a weapon system. For some reason that no one could figure out, it only works for women. Thus, IS Academy is an all-girls school.

Wait. A young man in Japan was able to activate an IS, something unheard of until recently. That person was enrolled in IS Academy, but then a large number of individuals with personalized IS systems have also turned up in the same school. And all of them seem to be in the same group as that young man in some way.

It's a political smorgasbord or nightmare depending which way you view it. That group had representatives from China, Great Britain, Germany, France, and even Russia. It's like the bloody United Nations in there.

I tell all this, succinctly, to Sam.

"Glad to see someone here has some idea of what's going on." Sam seemed to relax at this, which is good. He's a lot more pleasant when he's not stressing out. "What does that mean for us? Australia, I mean."

I could see Sam's point. Australia as a country shares good relations with China and America. We're also a commonwealth nation, so we have good relations with Great Britain _(not that the Poms' bloody whinge any less every time we kick their tail in Cricket)_. And considering that Japan's already tried to invade us once, we're on pretty good terms with them, too.

Kidding aside, however, Australia does have a bit of an issue.

There are only a limited number of Infinite Stratos units in the world. This is something declared by international law. I never figured out what standard they use to figure how many which nation gets, but...

...for some reason Australia gets one.

You heard it right. My beloved adopted country, the one with large tracts of sand, dust, and really really REALLY homicidally annoyed kangaroos and drop bears who just want to be left alone and not chased by crazy tourists wanting to hug them, gets just ONE lousy IS with respect to the entire population.

Okay, it's definitely true that Australia's population is too small to warrant a large number of IS. And it's somewhat true that most of the wildlife in-country is far deadlier than an IS (non-Australians think I'm joking when I tell them that wombats are capable of killing you in the most horrible way imaginable-by sitting on you).

But there's still the principle of the thing.

Put simply, Australia doesn't have a representative candidate in IS Academy, and by further extension we have absolutely no idea how or why that young japanese guy managed to put together such an impressive multinational team. We're the only major power in the region left in the dark.

"Where is this all leading?" I asked Sam aloud, though I hadn't meant to.

"One of those aforementioned representatives is arriving in Melbourne in a couple of days, to demonstrate their third-generation unit and exchange information," I heard his voice trail off. "I want you to stick to her like glue and get her talking about this Orimura Ichika person."

"Whoawhoawhoa, isn't that a field agent or case manager's job?" I was just an entry-level junior admin. I wasn't qualified for it.

Sam had this look on his face, the kind that said 'you're not my best choice, but better you than the box of lunatics I have in the basement.'

No choice but to agree here. If I did well, it was a sure promotion. If not, I could kiss my chances of being employed ever again down the drain.

"Go to Melbourne, check. Quiz the Rep about her classmate, check."

"And _WHATEVER_you do, don't piss her off," Sam gave me stern warning. "These are teenagers wearing weapons of mass destruction. I don't want to wake up one morning trying to explain to the Prime Minister why there's a giant hole where her home town used to be."

"Wow." Despite myself, I couldn't help but smirk. "So do you want me to take her on a date? Is that something I can put on the government tab?"

"I don't care how it's done. Keep her entertained. Pleased. Well fed. NOT angry," He started showing signs of a typical Australian-Italian male in middle age-swinging his arms around in frustration wanting to strangle someone. "...**_HAPPY _**for lack of a better word!"

"Done," I agreed, though not without a modicum of doubt. "So, who am I meeting tomorrow?"

"The pilot candidate you will speak to is the IS Representative for China, Fan Lin Yin."

...I have undeniable proof that God exists. He really does.

He's a TV sitcom writer.

* * *

><p>Melbourne airport was pretty quiet for this time of the day. I'd flown out of Canberra and into Melbourne the same day that Sam talked to me, so I at least had a day of sleep by the time I turned up, expecting the arrival.<p>

To be honest, I shouldn't have been surprised that the representative I was about to meet was the one from China. Despite conflicting ideologies, that nation has a good working relationship with us, and we exchange a lot of natural resources and technologies. I suppose it's no skin off their nose when the Chinese show off their IS technology, seeing that we Aussies only have the one, and China has...quite a few.

Trouble is, I've already heard of Fan Lin Yin.

The People's Republic of China had a prodigy on their hands when they took her in as their Representative Candidate. Pilot of the 3rd Generation IS machine **[Shenlong]**, with a proficiency at both close and long-range combat.

She was also known for having a pretty rotten temperament.

I didn't like that kind of girl. You know the type, the ones that have a boxcutter they try to drop on you whenever they're mad, or have a giant lumberjack's saw they aim at your neck when they're jealous? Not my type at all.

Why me? Something tells me this was not entirely Sam's doing. On the surface it seemed logical enough. The pilot candidate whose data we wanted to study was chinese, and I was of chinese descent while being an Australian citizen.

...except that I don't speak chinese. Hell, one of the reasons I live in Australia is because people speak english here. It'd be really awkward if she suddenly started speaking to me in Chinese.

Okay, here she comes.

I'm actually surprised; I was expecting her to come with an entourage of aides or even a group of chinese men in black surrounding her. As it is, she's alone with only a small bag on her shoulder.

And if the bag was small, the representative herself was even smaller. I thought students at IS Academy were supposed to be of high school age, sixteen years or thereabouts? I could have sworn the twin-ponytailed chinese girl in front of me was no older than ten-wait, why is she giving me that "I know what you're thinking and cut it out before I beat you to death with something big, metal and blunt" look?

"Are you the person I'm supposed to meet?" came her annoyed, disappointed tone of query.

I fumbled for my ASIO pass and showed it to her with a polite "Nihao."

...no, wait. That's chinese, not english, right? "I mean welcome to Australia, Miss Yin."

"My family name's Fan, not Yin." She replied. Okay, so I'm not winning any points at the moment-I could see why Sam was worried. Not two minutes into conversation and already this kid looked ready to destroy something. I'm **fairly **sure it wasn't me, and that she got off the plane from Japan already carrying this bad attitude.

"You're not waiting for anyone else?"

"No," Linyin seemed to have a short pause in her reply, as if she was hoping someone was with her, but then replied _(quite arrogantly)_: "And I can handle a dirty old man like yourself if I need to."

Who are you calling a dirty old man? Sam told me to keep her happy, but I suddenly wanted to crack this kid's head in two. With a cricket bat. A spiked cricket bat. Argh.

"Your **[Shenlong] **IS has an appointment this afternoon with the testing group in Melbourne's Docklands. I'm not going to keep them waiting." I put my foot down on this. I don't know what her problem is, but those problems are becoming mine.

With what looked like a tired sigh of defeat Linyin shrugged: "Well, just let me freshen up a second, and then we'll go. Is that alright mister agency man?"

There was that smile that was utterly untrustworthy on her face.

I crossed my arms. "Fine."

Like a bolt, the girl headed over to the toilets, but I could still hear her muttering "Stupid Dirty Old Man" as she headed off.

I swear, I'll pull out that kid's ears. That's probably the reason why Sam got me to do this job; most every other ASIO case agent probably turned it down. Hell, they know more than I do about IS representatives, tech, and other nuances. They would have known Linyin was a pain in the backside to deal with.

While waiting for Linyin earlier this morning, I had done a bit of research on the other IS representatives that were surrounding this Orimura Ichika. Interesting characters, all of them. Japanese, German, Bloody English, oh and a pretty French Filly. Obviously the one I'd focused on was Charlotte Dunois.

Realizing that for the next two days I was stuck with a short and grouchy chinese kid who was probably intent on spending her whole time in Australia grouchy and short, I had every right to be disappointed. Why couldn't it have been the French girl? She was damned easy on the eyes, and the ASIO reports indicated she was actually quite pleasant to speak to.

Pleasant, hell. If you were a normal functioning male, you would bend over backwards to get stuck with a woman like that. Drop-dead gorgeous blonde, wonderful to speak to, even tempered. Hell, I would have kissed Sam for the chance to show her around, if it had been offered. Ah, Cest La Vie. Trouble is that compared to me, they're still kids age-wise.

At least I took comfort in realizing that I wasn't stuck with the worst possible option: Britain's Cecilia Alcott. Asking an Australian to babysit a bloody pom would have been cruel and unusual punishment. Just because they won the Ashes-a Cricket game that has been going between Australia and England for ages-again last year, they never let us hear the end of it. As Cricket was one of the few sports in the world that men and solely men played, it's not easy accepting defeat.

By the way, I'm not a Cricket fan, but obviously I need to support the home team.

That girl was taking her time to freshen up. I hope she's not one of those difficult types that pretends to use the toilet and then goes off on her own to cause trouble. Oh no, wait. Here she comes.

She seemed a lot better, but her eyes looked a bit red. Was she crying?

"Alright, I'm ready!" There was that untrustworthy smile on her face again. "Let's go, old man!"

...will you stop calling me that?

* * *

><p>"Eeeh, with this many people it's almost like a bigger version of IS Academy."<p>

As I drove into Melbourne City, I understood what she meant by that. Linyin coming from China had only ever seen other chinese. Her first real immersion with other cultures was in Is Academy, and even that's not a large range of people to be honest-only countries that could afford to send representatives to IS Academy had any say-as I mentioned, Australia has nobody in that school.

Australia's very much a melting pot of cultures. You have white people, black people, brown people, yellow people, even some tutti-frutti people that I only ever see drunk on friday nights or sleeping outside my door Saturday morning with a hangover-no, forget I said that.

Anyway, it's not my car. It isn't exactly a limousine, either. I rented it from a local place, appropriately called Rent-a-Bomb, because being a small fry in ASIO I couldn't afford to put the car rental on the government tab. I already feared the worst when Linyin took one look at the car and simply refused to speak to me for most of the trip. Mainly because she was having trouble not laughing at me.

Whose bright idea is it to import into Australia second-hand Japanese cars that were really made in Thailand that are smaller than the toilet in my apartment flat? Anyway, that's all I can afford. At least it didn't break down on the way in from the airport.

"I'm surprised there aren't any security people around to keep watch over me," Linyin finally remarked.

"China isn't at war with Australia, is it? There's no need for it."

"Oh," Linyin was using that sneaky smile again. "But shouldn't they be protecting a cute innocent girl from a potentially scary older man trying to take advantage of her?"

Eh. I don't want to answer that oh-so-obviously baited question. Besides, I'm the one who's supposed to be asking the questions here. If you want to check my credentials, feel free because I'm not interested in bratty little kids.

"Don't you ever smile?"

Obviously not to someone obviously trying to make me look like an idiot!

"I mean, you've had that same grumpy face since we left the airport. It makes you look even more like an old man."

**ME**, grumpy? Maybe it's all because of you? Little twin-tailed baby devil-forget it. "I was born with this face."

"Eh, don't say that," Linyin suddenly dropped the smile, and then in a low mumble she thought I couldn't hear: "I didn't travel a thousand miles just to meet another Houki."

I don't know why I was being compared to a stone-faced humourless Japanese girl I've never met, but I'm not asking her that question. I'm not that bad, I just have a lot of things on my mind. There were tons of things that needed  
>to be done, and I hadn't even begun to ask about Orimura Ichika.<p>

Linyin then changed the topic: "What can you tell me about **[Outback Screamer]**?"

That's the name of Australia's IS. Personally I wouldn't have given it that name _(urban legend has it that Marie Coxswain was drunk on twenty vodka cruisers when she built it, our 2.75 Generation IS, out of Kangaroo tails and Wombat hide)_, but I wasn't the developer or designer. As previously mentioned, I'm just the messenger boy, trying to keep this job I've been assigned.

"No idea."

"Eh? But you're an Australian Intelligence agent, right?"

Time to put my foot down. "I'm not at liberty to discuss anything about Australia's IS."

"In short, you don't know anything about it, do you?" Another one of those sneaky, untrustworthy grins. "Heh."

**WHY THE HELL ARE YOU BEDEVILLING ME LIKE THIS?**

"Ah-Should you be trying to tear the steering wheel apart with your hands?"

I was about to, when we drove into the turn-off into the Automotive Centre of Excellence's car park. I stopped at the gate, showing the guard my ASIO ID.

Meanwhile, Linyin waved a cute 'hi' to him.

"Maaate. Your little sister's cute," the guard smirked as he lifted the gate. "Don't you think a kid like that would be bored looking at machinery all day? Y'should take her to Luna Park or the zoo, not here!"

I could hear a gurgle in Linyin's throat, and didn't have to look at her to know her face was probably making all sorts of monstrous people-eating gestures. So to be safe, I just drove straight in once the gate lifted.

"Who's that stupid old whitey calling a kid..." a voice that sounded like an axe murderer came from the tiny Chinese representative.

"Please don't summon your IS in the car. My salary doesn't cover rental repairs, you know."

"Well!" Linyin crossed her arms over her chest. "He shouldn't have called me a kid!"

"You shouldn't have acted like one."

"Hrrg." Is she pouting at me?

"You want to be treated seriously, then act seriously."

Linyin still had the last word. "Grumpy old man."

The car practically parked itself, which was good, because I almost hit the accelerator instead of the brake.

* * *

><p>The building was historically the Centre for Automotive Excellence, and was originally meant to test and refine cars. After the advent of the Infinite Stratos, it became the only facility in Australia that could test IS metallurgy and construction that was open to the public. Technically, we had a few other facilities that could do this, but they were property of our military, and thus too secure to allow a foreign national IS representative to set foot in. Since Australia had only one IS, our army was always looking for unique ways to counteract enemy IS attack if we-whoops, you didn't hear that from me...<p>

Linyin seemed docile enough when she summoned her IS **[Shenlong] **for the metallurgy tests. I'm not a tech genius, but apparently what they were currently testing was how 3rd generation IS armour fared after data decompression. Apparently, the physical aspects of an IS can be turned into pure data and stored in that form as Quantum Nonohon-no-bits-or was that Quagmire Nanobits? Anyway, something to that effect. As I said, I'm not a genius so it's all greek geek to me.

"This is stupid," Linyin complained as the laser depth scanners traced the outer shell of her armoured suit, a process that required her to stay completely still. "Couldn't they just send **[Shenlong's] **specs from my country to your country?"

"I'd say it's a matter of trust," I replied, strongly resisting the urge to poke fun at her. Remembering that her IS could flatten my skull within six picoseconds helps, really. "China trusts Australia enough to do its own studies on your IS."

"Or maybe Australia doesn't trust China to send over correct data?" Linyin sceptically refuted.

"Don't so cynical," I answered, but she actually had a valid point. China is chummy with us, but not THAT chummy. Still, like hell I'm stepping into that potential political landmine.

The analyst at the laser control gave a thumbs-up signalling the end of the armour depth testing. That study would eventually backflow into the Australian knowledge base on IS design and construction. One of the reason Australia's IS **[Outback Screamer]** is often termed a 2.75 Generation IS is because it has features and capabilities close to the newer 3rd-Generation designs like **[Shenlong]**, but not quite.

It's sort of like comparing an upgraded computer with a brand new one-they can probably perform the same things, but the upgraded one is a product of trial and error, and has lots of extra parts hanging off it, while the new computer is more streamlined. I guess you could look at Australia and China's IS designs in that way. The French Rafale Revive series technically count as 2.25 generation IS by comparison, and a custom version would be about the same as **[Outback Screamer]**'s 2.75 generation in terms of specs.

No, I didn't make this up. Sam already went through this process while strongly reminding me that if I messed up and Linyin wanted to kill me, there was no way that **[Outback Screamer] **would be able to protect me from the consequences, even if it was right next to me.

"What's next?" I turned to the tech as I walked toward the **[Shenlong]**.

"Weapons testing," the scruffy tech explained as his comrades put away their testing gear. **[Shenlong] **did not walk, but floated almost daintily toward the area the techs were indicating. "We need to test out how those Impact Cannons work."

"There's a firing range here?" Taking a step back, I was a bit worried. True, the Centre was vast. But it was an Automotive research institute first and an IS testing institute second. Why the hell did it have a weapons range? "Where is it?"

"Your bloody arse is standing on it."

I meekly tiptoed off the grid and behind the testing console. Wait, is that twin-tailed devil snickering at me _AGAIN_?

"I'm perfectly happy to blast an annoying old man if he wants to."

Cocky and confident and annoying. Gah, I'm actually getting used to that shrill little voice.

There was a click as walls were raised from the floor. A side-effect of IS technology was that a lot of applications later became commonplace. One such was the shield systems, a lot like science-fiction force fields. They were used to repel impacts from high-velocity objects. Since they took a huge amount of power fields couldn't be used on vehicles other than IS, but facilities could generate low-level versions of it.

In this case, the 'walls' that came up to close off the firing range were little more than aluminium and steel shutters. However, they generated a low-level field like the **[Shenlong]**'s own shields. Basically, an invisible barrier to keep fragments from injuring anyone else in the centre.

Despite risking being a target myself, I couldn't help myself. "Could you make sure you hit what you're aiming at?"

There was a giggle. "Are you afraid I'd kill you by accident?"

"Not really. It's just that my blood tends to leave a hard to clean big ugly stain on shiny surfaces. Like this centre," I kept a straight face saying this. "One that yourgovernment will make you clean up."

Oh, that got her. The utterly perplexed what-the-hell-I-don't-know-how-to-answer-that look on her face was worth it.

"Targets up."

The pop-up targets appeared.

I was expecting to hear a powerful blast. Instead, I almost heard a squeak out of Linyin's voice. A very unexpected squeak.

"...kangaroos?

There was a long, awkward silence. The techs, scruffy and manly and bogan as can be, looked...a bit nervous. Ah hell, someone's got to put his foot down.

"...you want me to kill those kangaroos?"

"They're less than a meter tall, so they're Wallabies."

"That's not the problem!" Linyin looked straight at me with-is that utter dread? From the twin-tailed devil? "You want me to use the Impact Cannon on kanga-wallabies?"

"Yes." I answered, flatly.

You see, I swear she's just doing this cute girly won't-hurt-a-fly routine on purpose to win sympathy points. Probably so we can cut the testing short and she can run amuck somewhere. I should know, I've had more than one girl pull that trick on me before.

Actually, now that I have a few seconds to think about it, I realize that most people worldwide think of those bloody 'Roos and Wallabies as cute critters that have babies in their pouches and hop around being cute and neighbourly in this oddball land called Australia. That is FAR from the truth. Think about this: Kangaroos and wallabies are common in Australia. VERY common, in fact.

Like rabbits, only bigger and meaner.

They also tend to eat more than rabbits, so when a herd of kangaroos visits a farm out in the outback-well, there's going to be some very angry farmers. There are seasons when hunting kangaroo is legal, in order to cut down the population to a manageable size. No, we don't hunt them all down, but there's got to be something done. They're not an endangered species by any definition of the word-well, some _specific_breeds of Roo are, but that's not my point.

Think about it, culling the population of 'roos and wallabies should be no more disturbing than hunting down an overpopulation of wild dogs or cats.

And since the Automotive Centre of Excellence is a civilian centre and not a military one, obviously they wouldn't be putting up targets of human beings. So wallabies it is.

Linyin repeated: "Kangaroos?"

"Wallabies." I repeated back. This is getting really _Awkwaaaard~~~~_"Just shoot them already."

Next to me, the scruffy tech's eyes went wide, but I glared back at him.  
>I know what I'm doing, dammit.<p>

"But they're..."

"What? Cute?" I scoffed at her. "An adult kangaroo's kick can disembowel a grown man. You try equating that with cute."

The scruffy tech next to me mouthed: 'are you bloody serious?'

"She's an IS Representative Candidate. This is a hell of a time to play squeamish." I whispered back at him.

"You said they were wallabies!" Lin was still hesitant-is she actually freaking out?

I was starting to lose my temper. Oh no wait, I already lost my temper on the drive down from the airport. I'm actually feeling suicidal because this girl who's capable of such meanness and mass destruction is balking at the thought of vaporizing cardboard cut-outs of wallabies.

**_BLOODY FREAKING WALLABIES._**

Glaring back at Linyin, I crossed my arms. "Representative Candidate, why do you think your country asked you to perform target testing here?"

The mention of 'Representative Candidate' seemed to shake her resolve even more. "That's a mean thing to say to a girl."

Ten...nine...eight...seven...

"You know it's not even a **real **wallaby. What's the problem?"

Linyin was silent, but I didn't know whether she was going to own up.

The scruffy tech was tapping my shoulder. "Uhm, if she doesn't want to do it we can change those targets into plain old bullseyes."

Too bad I wasn't having any of it.

"So you're telling me you can't shoot a paper target," I was growling, teeth grinding, and starting to feel the onset of ulcers in my gut. "But you don't have a problem trying to chop someone's head off?"

"As if I'd do that!" She screamed at me, shrilly. **[Shenlong] **turned away from the targets straight at me. Meaning that I was dead in the Impact Cannon's sights.

"Isn't that what you do in an IS battle?" Uh-oh. I was angry. And when I'm angry I start saying stupid things. Stupid things that normally get my guts beaten out of by whoever I say them to. But I can't help NOT saying those things to people who tick me off.

Besides, I tend to beat the other guy's guts out, too. Wait, why am I talking about this?

Linyin's face was red as beetroot. "It's not the same thing!"

I kept my face cold. "You're being hypocritical for a little kid."

"_HAVE YOU LOST THE PLOT, MATE?_" The tech looked about to wet his pants. Actually, was that the **[Shenlong]**'s Impact Cannons starting up?

"Tell me the truth, then." Here it comes, my pride before common sense and survival. "Tell me you haven't **SERIOUSLY **considered killing your classmate Ichika Orimura for real.

Oh hell. I said it.

**GAVOOMPH.**

The techs were screaming all over the floor. I wasn't budged, though. The shielding across the walls held. As the smoke cleared, I was expecting Linyin to have bolted clear across the planet.

She hadn't.

**[Shenlong] **was still standing there, it's staring at me with tearful, sobbing child's eyes.

Wait. Tearful?

"Mean old man." Linyin sobbed, just like a child. "You mean, MEAN old man!"

**[Shenlong] **then bolted out the Centre's door, even as the techs were screaming still. Some of them were on their phone-not to the police, as I heard one of them screaming for his mother.

Oddly, I felt ridiculously calm, even as I saw the IS tear straight into the Melbourne skyline. For some strange reason, what I was thinking of was whether I was now officially fired from ASIO.

My mobile phone rang. It was Sam's number.

Oboy, here it comes. I hit 'receive' on my mobile phone.

**"~~~WHAT THE HELL DID YOU TELL HER, Y'DUMB GALLARD?"**

* * *

><p>Good news: The Chinese government haven't heard about what just happened in Melbourne and ASIO is going to keep it that way.<p>

Bad news: Sam has been **very **descriptive about what he plans to do to my head, my lungs, my brains, and other vital parts of my body if I do not un-frack this situation and fast.

Specifically: his words were "Why was I **COLOSSALLY STUPID** enough to leave this all to **YOU?** Why? **WHYYY?**"

That basically boils down to me finding Linyin and bringing her back-in Sam's own words **HAPPY!**-before she goes and destroys something of interest, which right now could be anything.

**[Shenlong] **wasn't exactly designed for supersonic long-range flight, but it's still liable to get pretty far. If she's decided to head south toward Tasmania, it could be trouble, since I didn't relish crossing the ocean to go after her.

North would be another issue entirely. That's a lot of desert to be searching through.

You're wondering why I haven't just bothered to check with the ASIO about a satellite view? Well, a few things: An IS can jam surveillance if it wanted to. We never got to check if **[Shenlong]** had that ability before I sent Linyin off crying. Second: If ASIO could see **[Shenlong] **flying around, then so would the Chinese-meaning they knew what happened and we were all in deep pudding poo.

Third: Considering how mad Sam was-and it didn't help that his Ex-Wife apparently slapped another injunction order on him just this morning-I don't think I would have gotten much help. Once he calms down he'll probably offer the help assuming the first two cases I mentioned above weren't a problem. But right now, he just wants to strangle me to death.

...I'd better find that girl, and fast.

* * *

><p>It was about 4pm when I finally got word of her.<p>

By then, I was already half out of my mind trying to figure out the possibilities-It was easy to find out how far a 2nd generation IS could fly before running out of energy, but energy capacity was something we hadn't yet tested on **[Shenlong]**.

Oddly enough, it was a much calmer _(but still royally pissed)_Sam that got back to me via my mobile. Apparently, someone from the country and wine valleys up north reported something "like a flying Yowie" screech past them not fifteen minutes earlier.

"Get up there, and I don't care if you have to have your head cut off, just get her back!" Sam's delightfully worded order was.

The Yarra Valley was out country, not desert, but definitely away from regular civilization. There were only three things you could find out there: wine-growers, farmers, and animals.

I suddenly thought of the Wallabies and took a wild guess.

There were quite a few tourist-y places in this area, just beyond the Dandenong mountain ranges and across the Wineries. Hidden little locales where they served food and showed off tame versions of the local wildlife. There were also more professional places like Healesville sanctuary, but I doubted Linyin would turn up there.

So I started looking up some of the smaller bed and breakfasts, ones that had either tame wallabies and kangaroos, or else had access to wildlife reserves. I went through thirty different calls-all of whom yelled at me because I enquired if they'd seen a flying girl in gigantic powered armour.

The thirty-first call was a bit different. The second I mentioned that I was with ASIO, the woman on the other line suddenly interrupted: "Are you looking for that little chinese robot girl?"

So I filled up my car's tank. For good measure I asked for an extra gas can of fuel and put it in back.

* * *

><p>It was just approaching sunset when I arrived at the scene. From the response of the place's owner, the IS just floated down and sat there, watching the wild wallabies leaping around the underbrush.<p>

Thanking her, I took strides to get through the surrounding fence-**[Shenlong] **was outside the property, so technically Linyin wasn't trespassing anywhere. I just need to carefully tread over some-GAH these stupid bushes hurt-hey, what are those things sticking to my pants? Argh.

I finally caught up to the figure of an IS hunched in a sitting-squatting position. Like a giant mechanical kid, sulking. I tried to keep silent, then gave up. An active IS could hear a mouse sneeze, assuming mice sneeze. Or if mice played poker with its buddies on friday nights-just throwing it out there.

**[Shenlong] **seemed to just sit there, and I noticed Linyin was eyeing a small pack of Wallabies just beyond the treeline. That was all I saw before the animals bolted at the sight of me.

Linyin didn't turn around, still staring at the clearing where the wallabies were just moments before. Didn't seem like she was ready to kill anything, so I took a cautious enough step forward, to look her in the eye.

Her cheeks were wet, and it hadn't been raining. Eyes red and worn.

I just folded my arms and looked back at her. The sane part of my brain reminded me not to say anything that would get me killed. The thinking part was suddenly free to analyse what happened-now that I'd found her and I could relatively stop panicking.

When I made that comment about her wanting to kill Orimura Ichika, I was referring to the one-on-one match they'd had less than a year prior. I expected to rile her feathers, but not nearly to this level. Linyin seemed almost shaken by the idea. A little too shaken for normal.

And nothing was going to happen if we kept standing out here staring at each other.

"Okay," I decided to talk first, clean up the already over the top mess later. The worst that could happen is she could kill me, right? Wait, that's not exactly a positive thing. "You want to talk about it?"

"No." she hissed in an accusing voice more childlike than before. "Why should I talk to a mean old man like you?"

"Precisely because I'm a mean old man." Wait, was that supposed to sound cool or something? "You can talk about things you wouldn't say to a friend."

Linyin just glared back, and I swear there were more tears in her eyes.

"Hey, it's not like I'm going to be sending reports back to your country or to IS Academy." Truthfully, it's not like I want the whole world to know that I'd just sent the Representative Candidate for China away crying. Losing my job would be the least of my worries. "Say anything you want."

**[Shenlong] **did not move, but Linyin turned her face away.

"I don't want to be in your country." She started to mumble angrily under her breath. "I want to go back."

Back? "To China?"

"IS Academy." Lin replied, face still avoiding me. "If I wasn't ordered to, I wouldn't even be here."

"Well, that's simple. Just do what needs to be done and go." Since when did this twin-tailed little devil start having a sensitive side?

"It's not just that! I don't like being here!" The underbrush rustled-lots of scared animals in there. Linyin still had her IS active, but didn't make any move outside of wailing. "I don't want to be here, where you shoot wallabies and yell at little girls and there's nothing but desert at the centre!"

Desert? It's true that Australia's mostly desert, but-wait, just how far inland did you go, anyway? Hang on, that's _REALLY_not the problem here!

"You haven't been here long enough to complain," Not like me. I can complain because I live here! Hey, am I raising my voice? "Just because you don't like this place doesn't mean-"

"I don't want to be here! I want to be back there!"

"**_AAAARRRGGHHHH!_**" I failed to notice just how loudly Linyin was screaming. She must have started three half-sentences or so ago, in between 'wallabies' and yell. As a consequence, I was also yelling back pretty loudly, my throat's getting hoarse and I was getting tired of the run-around: "If all you want is to leave, then finish your job and go, Representative Candidate!"

"**I WANT TO BE WITH ICHIKA!**"

...Huh?

Linyin's hands covered her face, I guess she was trying to just cover her mouth but the IS's mechanical hands were big enough to cover her entire head. Or my head, for that matter. Oh lord, please try not to think of what an angry kid could do with those hands, such as squashing my head like a pimple-argh, I thought it!

Again, cue the Great Silence of Awkward(TM) between us.

Linyin lowered her hands and looked at me with this odd, utterly suspicious, sad-little-girl look.

"...I want to be with Ichika."

Ichika? Orimura Ichika? Don't tell me she's already planning Japan's second attempt to invade Australia, we can't take it! There's a Kangaroo shortage in our defence grid! No wait, Linyin's Chinese, not Japanese. China will probably do something far worse to us, like...litigate. Why the hell is my brain going off on such retarded tangents when my life is at stake?

Okay, collect yourself. I'm fairly sure I haven't started looking like a roast pumpkin, as Linyin continued to have that completely untrustworthy and out of character serious look. It's more disturbing than the devilish kiddie attitude she had up until that incident in the city.

"So," I'm making sure I'm phrasing this the right way: "You basically took my throwaway comment seriously."

There was a glare, but no explosion this time. Phew.

"It's not like that at all. I don't want to kill Ichika," Linyin sniffled, a kid trying not to cry but failing entirely. "I sometimes want crack that thick head of his open, but I don't want to KILL him!"

Hey...doesn't cracking someone's head open constitute killing them anyway?

"Ichika's just stupid! He doesn't understand how I feel-" she continued, sounding more exasperated. "Huuu~~He just...he just...!"

"Girls talk about how their feelings are hurt, but nobody ever asks the guys." There, I saw that light flash of anger in her face. I took a breath, marvelling how I can keep a straight calm face when I'm two pigeons short of an execution by giant mecha.

"What if Ichika was here in front of you, right now?"

I've been known to be dense around some people. More often than not it was me being too angry to listen to common sense.

I was not dense enough to miss this.

There was this sudden little zap of surprise on Linyin's face when I mentioned Orimura's name. Her face had a blush like wildfire for all of three seconds before she managed to compose herself again. It was obvious; You'd have to have a blockhead made of depleted uranium to miss that look entirely-and I have a funny feeling such a blockhead really does exist.

Bingo. "I knew it. You'd rather be around Orimura Ichika than me."

"-Who wants to be around a nasty old man like you!"

That's not what I meant! But that's okay, I wouldn't want to be around me either-hey stop changing the subject! And hey, it's not natural to see an IS like **[Shenlong] **kneeling down like that. I know it's just a machine's legs not the real person's, but it still looks painful.

Wait, is she crying again?

Okay, this is where I admit I'm dense, because I have no idea why she's crying now. Goddammit, stop that. Stop crying, you stupid kid. I couldn't help myself. I didn't realize that **[Shenlong] **had knelt down like a child once more, putting its pilot down to her normal petite height.

I put a hand on her head. Linyin's only response was a sad whimper.

This is probably the real reason I can't really get along with Fan Lin Yin. She's just a kid, trying to act cool and tough. At the same time, I wondered if most of the girls studying at IS Academy were like that, just young girls pretending to be strong, overwhelmingly confident women that they clearly weren't.

Or maybe that's just my old-fashioned male chauvinism at work.

Wait, why the hell is this suddenly turning into one of those dramatic cut scenes from a japanese dating simulation game?

I pulled my hand back.

"I don't like kids being made to pilot weapons-" No, I meant to say I don't approve of girls piloting weapons, but it came out wrong. Oh great, what now? "Being a pilot shouldn't be more important than being a kid."

Result: Perplexed Linyin. "Huh?"

Urgh. Make something up and fast!

"I mean, why the heck are you kids in such a hurry to grow up?" That sounded intelligent_-NO IT'S NOT!_I'm making things up as I go along here! "Kids have things to do that are more important than testing piloting exoskeletons and shooting things. For starters, being honest with each other."

**[Shenlong] **stood up, even as Linyin deactivated the armour of one arm, rubbing her eyes.

"Once you're an adult, you can't afford to be honest anymore." Okay, where did I steal that line from, anyway? "Especially not when you're in love. Adults play the nastiest games when it's love you're talking about."

Geh. GEH! How the hell did I lead the conversation in this direction?

There was more silence, but it didn't seem awkward this time around. I risked turning my back on Linyin. She'd either try to run away again or pummel me into the ground like a fencepost, but it wasn't like I had anything left to risk at this point.

That's when I saw it.

Above us was singing a starlight serenade of white streaks crossing the south-eastern skies, a meteor shower coursing through the dark. I remember viewing the same scene ages ago, maybe when I was as old as Linyin herself. It brought back some odd memories.

"Back in my old country, I watched a meteor shower like this."

"What do you mean 'your old country'?" Linyin asked.

"Before I moved to Australia." I started talking without really thinking. Knocking back, I let myself fall to sit on the grassy grounds, still watching the spectacle overhead. "Back when it wasn't so polluted that you couldn't see the stars. I figured that if I couldn't change where I lived, I changed where I lived."

"You moved from your old country to Australia?" Linyin's look was that of utter surprise. Coming from China, she probably never knew you could migrate to another country if you chose to. "Why would you do that?"

"Oh, lots of reasons. I didn't like the heat, I didn't get along with the people, I hated the government, I hated my job, I couldn't get along with my family, and then there was this girl-" _STOP RIGHT THERE, BUCKO._"-I just didn't want to live there anymore."

"So you left because of a girl?" Linyin sounded utterly disappointed, as if she was expecting a world-shaking explanation.

Gah.

"She wasn't the ONLYreason," I started, then realized that there was no point skirting around the issue. "I told her I'm never coming back."

Linyin's ears seemed to pick this up, before I knew it she was listening to my story.

"I'm not going to go into details," I grimaced. "She was a girl who played with other peoples' feelings but hated it when other people were insensitive to her. Don't ask me how we met. They all warned me. Told me not to lose my heart to her, she'll never give it back."

"She sounds like a nasty woman." Linyin commented.

"You know how they say two people in love have to be honest with each other? Honesty was something _severely_lacking in that relationship." I stood up and made a show of dusting off the-OW!-thistles from my pants. "We were both trying to act like adults when we were actually just kids. I should've known things would fall apart."

Linyin kept silent, attentive.

"I wanted a secure job and family, she wanted to be free to do whatever she wanted. Neither of us explained to each other what we wanted, we just assumed they should know." I drew in a breath, as the next part was pretty hard for me to live through again while telling the same tale. "It was during a meteor storm like this. I was going to propose to her when she suddenly said she was moving to America."

"Then why didn't you go with her?"

"Because she told me _the night before she left_." That came out a lot more bitter than I'd hoped. "I was planning to marry her. In response, she told me to my face she wanted to easily marry an American guy and get citizenship. We broke up, and she told me never to see her again."

"That would have been a long time ago, before the IS?" Linyin wanted to clarify that point, and I nodded.

In this day and age of the IS system, women had far more rights and privileges than men. Meaning that many roles were now reversed-it was more likely in this day and age for a man to try and marry upwards, instead of a woman. Hell, I think that was the case with those poms in the Alcott family, if I read the file right.

"Couldn't you just accept it?"

"I did accept it. After a year, I finally got over it. And that would have been fine," Another breath, I was trying hard not to hyperventilate, since bringing up this old topic causes me to stress out like crazy. I hate revisiting my past like this. "Except that after that year, she called from America and said she missed me and wanted me back."

"What?" There was this new look I hadn't seen before on Linyin's face, one that looked like the face was spelling out 'are you an idiot?' in all caps and bold font. "Then take her back!"

"..._AFTER_ she'd married. And was _STILL_married."

"Geh." I could hear Linyin make a gasp of mild surprise.

"That was just around after the White Knight incident occurred, and women were now gaining rights. She said she'd changed her mind, that she forgave _ME_, and then told me to go to America to find her. By then I already realized that she wasn't the marrying kind, she just wanted to have me around just for old times' sake.

"She called me a couple more times demanding I go to America for her. I reminded her of what she told me on that meteor night the year before, which she flatly denied. And then she went on about how I never considered her feelings and how I was being selfish and dense.

Once again I took a breath.

"I told her to shove it. And then I left for Australia where she can't find me. And that's how I ended up here."

Linyin looked strangely apologetic-for what reason I don't know. "Couldn't you forgive her?"

"She told me in no uncertain terms never to see her again. If she asks anyone, I know they'll tell her to her face that it's too late for her to fix this. And she'll never admit she was in the wrong."

"But what if she said something but meant something else?"

"Men don't work that way! I don't wanna know what she said. She can cry all she wants but it's not gonna bring me back."

"But don't you care how she feels?"

"What about how **I **felt? Is it because I'm male that my feelings don't matter?" I felt faint, my blood pressure was acting up while I was reliving that horrible experience from my past. "It's not just her. Neither of us were honest with each other. And it's compounded by the fact that as adults now we can't go back on what's been said."

The silence from Linyin, with the intent look on her face, showed how attentive she was to my story. I hadn't realized it was possible for the girl could actually be sensible for an extended amount of time.

"...it's stupid." she finally responded. "You ran away to another country because you and your girlfriend couldn't get along?"

"That's the short of it. Most adults regret not doing something as a kid. Either because they were scared, or proud, or trying so hard to be like an adult that they don't even try to be a kid. Don't be afraid to say your mind and don't be afraid to apologize when you realize you're wrong. It has to be both, otherwise you keep making mistakes you never fix, or you end up apologizing for things you didn't do."

The **[Shenlong] **stood silent.

"Kids think adults are more understanding and mature about relationships. That's not true. If anything, we're a lot worse at it, because we have to look dignified and never admit we're wrong," I'm _fairly_certain I'm ripping off this conversation from someone else, maybe some drunken workaholic mother somewhere. "And adults are always more concerned about how every other adult thinks. Doing the 'right thing' in the eyes of everyone is sure to kill off all your plans for a happy ending."

"Then, what should I do?"

"Do what you feel is worth doing. Make mistakes while it's still early enough in life for you to fix them if it goes wrong," I can't believe I'm encouraging her to do this-my career is doomed. "Hell, you wouldn't want to grow old and cranky like me, would you?"

The next thing I know, I'm being grabbed by a pair of very large metal arms. I only had a few seconds to Thi**_-!_**"

-Good thing I'm wearing dark pants!

* * *

><p>I was screaming my head off when my feet finally hit the ground, lord knows where in the middle of the sandy desert outback. Flat firm ground, I was thankful for. Even moreso that I could see a small lake nearby and realized she could have dropped me in there, that Linyin!<p>

"-WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?"

"You don't like flying?" Linyin mischievously grinned.

"PLANES!" I yelled. "I am okay with flying in PLANES! Large metal cylinders with wings and engines and pretty stewardesses and in-flight entertainment and safety regulations and a generally acceptable record of getting its passengers to where they need to go without **DROPPNG THEM!** NOTbeing hauled by my armpits for three minutes at supersonic speed! WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?"

"Crazy old man!" Linyin was laughing her head off. The twin-tailed devil was laughing at me once again! "Seriously, you look hilarious!"

"THAT WAS NOT FUNNY! What if you dropped me into that pool of water? The crocodiles are hungry this time of year, and there aren't enough great white sharks left in the ocean for them to eat!"

"You're thinking aloud VERY loud," she pointedly noted.

"It WOULD be out loud! I am trying very hard not to freak out after being yanked off the ground and taken to lord only knows where-actually, where are we and why the hell did you bring me out here?"

"Out here, the meteor showers are clearer."

"Eh?" My gaze looked upward and realized the kid was right. What we were watching earlier in the wine valley countryside was but a fraction of the scene above us now. The night was scattering from the rain of light overhead, and there were almost rainbow-like tails as the meteors streaked with impunity over the black canvas sky.

"I wanted to watch a meteor shower with him, just once."

"You wanted to-oh, you mean Orimura Ichika." Slow down. I tend to talk descriptively out loud when I'm under major stress, if nobody's noticed by now.

"If I didn't have to leave..." She seemed to take this wistfully, not really caring who heard it. I let it be, because I didn't know if she meant watching the sky now or if she was talking about some time in her past.

Finally: "I just realized it."

Realized what?

"You came here because you're running away from your past." Linyin continued. "I went there-IS Academy-to get back to it."

"Huh?" Is this kid lecturing menow?

"It's not just Ichika." **[Shenlong] **straightened as Linyin looked to the sky. "I wanted those old times back, when I was happy. Everyone was happy."

My brain finally decided to work properly, and I recalled that Linyin's parents had separated years back. Now I was starting to realize that there was more to Linyin than I'd first thought.

"You've lived in Japan before." Statement of fact.

"When I was younger. I don't really like it," she continued. A slight frown followed by a smaller, more modest smile. "But because someone I like lives there, I now think it's a great place."

Hmmm. "Just Ichika? Don't you have other friends there?"

"Well, those other girls-" Her eyes then narrowed threateningly at me. "If you tell them anything-"

"Like hell I will!"

Was that a cautious sort of look on her face? The kind that a jealous woman shows when she's bad-mouthing her rivals to someone else? Is it that kind of relationship she has with everyone who's not Orimura Ichika?

"I'm not going to bad-mouth anybody." came the flat response.

"I never said-was I thinking aloud again?"

"No, it's quite obvious what you're thinking from the look on your face."

Ah crap.

"Really," the twin-tailed devil was pouting as girls do when they doubt your sincerity. "You're not as cool as you think, old man."

"Don't go there, okay?" I was desperately burying my face into the heel of my right palm and it hurt like hell. "So it's just Ichika, then?"

"Not really." Linyin had this oddly pensive look, I swear that it didn't fit the personality of manic little chinese devil that I'd been dealing with earlier. "I wouldn't really call them friends. More like rivals."

"Rivals?"

She said no more from that, so I just let it go. IS pilots tended to be fairly competitive. Not just in IS matches or combat, either.

"You don't regret meeting them, though?"

"Hm?" Linyin seemed to consider that thought for a bit. "No, I don't. Well, I feel like I want to kill Cecilia sometimes..."

So it's bad to kill cut-out wallabies but not an annoying pom? Well, I know a few fellow aussies who would agree wholeheartedly, but-!

"But they're not bad people." Linyin was looking upward at the stars and streaks of meteor dust. "I'd rather be alone with Ichika, watching this. But if they were around as well...it might not be so bad."

The sky was darkening now, the meteor shower slowing down to a trickle as the world passed it by. I could see that wistful look on Linyin's face, and could picture the thoughts she had. It was Orimura Ichika she wanted right next to her, watching the start, middle, and end of the light show that just now began winding down.

It was pretty hard, figuring out what to say next.

"The worst thing a kid can do is to act like adult when it's not appropriate." I began, then searched for words as Linyin looked at me, the skyward scenery now dimming to the ordinary pale black of night. "Don't let pride get in the way of happiness. Pride is an adult's regret."

"But pride comes with the job! I'm the representative Candidate-" Linyin began, but stopped. As if she was beginning to see my point.

"You're a kid first. When I was a kid, I swore I'd never do anything I'd regret. Now I regret NOT doing things that I'd regret, because that means I didn't do anything at all," I'm scratching my scalp because it's itchy, not because I'm thinking. "Lots of things, like riding a bike, or falling in love the first time. Or saying sorry even when you know damn well it's not your fault."

More silence from Linyin, I wasn't sure if she was mulling over my words or just silently annoyed, but I continued on.

"Do you talk to Orimura often?"

"Yeah." **[Shenlong] **was stationary, and it seemed almost like Linyin was a separate entity, completely independent of her IS even though she wore it firmly. "I do."

"Do you talk about each others' feelings?"

"That's private." Her reply was sharp, but did not go beyond that. I had a feeling she would have instantly beheaded me if she was in less mellow a mood.

"I think you should. Or at least, try to talk to each other more honestly. Obviously, there's things you can't fix just by talking about it. But for crikey's sake, _TALK_. Not just make words to fill up the air, but communicate. Don't make the mistake of assuming he should know what you're thinking. Don't let it get to the stage you'll regret it, Fan Lin Yin. "

Again, my old regrets were reminding me as I imparted this.

"Don't let him tell you he doesn't want to know what you said."

The breath in her voice was caught, as Linyin took in this lesson.

"-I won't."

Silent moonlight was raining on the surface of the water. It isn't what I expected.

In the cold dry night of the desert, I saw the girl standing armoured and tall in the quiet, lonely dark. Her machine was silent in its stance, but the maiden's heart within her trembled like the turbulent oceans.

She turned to me with those questioning eyes, a hint of soft gentility clad in her cloak of beautiful steel.

"I wish I had met you sooner," she replied, the girl-woman hiding both her smile and tears under a tone of familiarity.

Looking at her I could only ask myself...how did it come to this?

"...Old man." That mischievous grin was back on her face.

"Huh." It didn't feel nearly as insulting now.

"One thing," the question posed. Actually honest, for once. "Why did you move here, instead of some other country?"

"This is one of the youngest countries on earth. Even in this age of satellite observation, there are still places here that nobody's ever been to."

I stretched, happily taking in the desert air.

"It's a place where you can feel young again. Out here, we still have places to amaze an old man like me." Turning to Linyin, I gave her my own smirk. "Feel free to bring that idiot here to watch meteor showers anytime."

"That'd be nice," she smiled, then stopped, almost embarrassed to admit it: "If only that blockhead could take a hint."

"Talk to him. Spell it out if you have to." All of a sudden, my smirk grew mischievous as well. "And if that doesn't work, you can always feed him to the crocodiles..."

* * *

><p>"They're in love with him?"<p>

Sam's face was as sceptical as someone being sold the Atlantic Ocean. At least he wasn't trying to kill me. And at least I'm not fired yet. But damn, it's gonna take awhile for my life to return to normal.

"From what I gather, yes." Thankfully, the impact cannon test data was captured well-when Linyin nearly blew open the shutter walls at the Automotive centre, the data techs got more than they bargained for. There wasn't a need for **[Shenlong] **to shoot any more paper wallabies, much to Linyin's relief. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but the only reason they're in such a group is because of that. And friendship, as well."

"Friendship," Sam was still sceptical. "Sounds like something a cartoon about ponies would talk about. Why the hell do you think this isn't some sort of plot?"

"Because they're kids." I could now confidently say that with a smile. "And they're going to be just fine."

There was a grumpy frazzled harrumph out of Sam, but he seemed to accept it. At least, he wasn't chasing me out of his office threatening to kill me or anything of the sort. In fact, he actually promoted me, somewhat.

From Office All-rounder to administration response. Which basically reads: Same position, same pay, slightly longer lunch break, but longer hours. Well, it's not totally depressing. At last I can use my 45 minute lunch break to think up stories that'll never get published.

What was it said about writers? Oh yeah. Good writers get accolades, bad writers go and get a real job?

Seriously though, Sam's just passed on a new assignment to me: The ASIO is currently undertaking an investigation into an organization called Phantom Task. Apparently it's a terrorist organization of some sort. Don't know much about them, but I was getting a bad feeling about it nonetheless.

What the hell. I could handle a temperamental twin-tailed devil of an IS pilot, I can handle this.

Easy.


End file.
